


constellations tonight (are so fearsomely bright, my love)

by Mx_Carter



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Dom/sub, Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Lists, M/M, Multi, Non-binary character, Plain ol' angst, Slow Build, Threesome - F/M/M, set in the magical universe where everything is great and nobody dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7488975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(He’s only seen them together once – Finch met Carter on the edge of a crime scene, and they walked off together. He’d stood and watched as Finch leaned over to say something in Carter’s ear, and she threw her head back and laughed, giving him one of those smiles that light her whole face up. Finch had ducked his head and they’d walked on, not holding hands or looping arms, but still managing to project an aura of closeness and warmth. John had not been proud of how he’d turned and fairly ran.</p><p>They both looked so <i>happy</i>.)</p><p>Or; Joss, John, Harold, and the pursuit of happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	constellations tonight (are so fearsomely bright, my love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueberryfallout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryfallout/gifts).



> This is set in the parallel universe where Harold let Root help out right at the end of The Crossing, so Joss survived, Decima never got its hands on Samaritan because Team Machine had three extra people helping out, and everything is good and happy - or at least as happy as this damn show gets. I know, it's a horrible cop-out, but let me dream.
> 
> The cocktail bar at the beginning was stolen from a rather excellent fic called I'm Gonna Find That Girl (Underneath The Mistletoe) by paperclipbitch. Go read it, y'all.
> 
> I also did a bit of an experimental thing with lists that may or may not work, but if Shakespeare can single-handedly revolutionise the English language then I don't see why I can't do cool shit with lists in fanfiction without looking like a loser.
> 
> Title from Atticus by The Noisettes

**_part one: Joss_ **

Homicide can be the most rewarding work – getting to see the family’s faces when they realise the bastard who killed their loved one is going to jail is one of life’s very special pleasures – and Joss Carter has a damn thick skin, but there’s still days she wants to curl up in a ball at her desk and scream into her knees. Days she looks at Taylor and thinks _, what in God’s name was I thinking, bringing a kid into a world like this._  She never lets herself get bogged down in that for very long – that way lies madness, she’s seen it often enough, and at this point it’s a matter of pride that she not break under the strain of working Homicide in a city like New York. She’s been to a war zone, dammit. She’s seen some hellish things, and New York is not gonna be the thing that breaks her. So she has contingencies.

When you feel like that, Joss knows, you get up and you find something good, something worth living for. You go to the park, or take your son to the movies, or to your mom’s place for a proper family dinner, or you go out for drinks with friends. You get out of your skin and away from your work, try and surround yourself with people you like instead of pissy civilians and dead bodies. It’s how she’s stayed this stable for this long.

So when Finch asks her to go for drinks with him after they’ve both wrapped up separate cases, Joss lets her mind drift for the last time to the truly awful triple homicide case she’s been working for a week now, before firmly tearing herself away and agreeing. Her friendly neighbourhood team of vigilantes hadn’t read her in on this one, but from the hints she’d got from John and Shaw, it probably wasn’t much better than hers. Seems like Finch has the same idea she does.

She’s expecting him to take her somewhere classy, understated and ever so slightly overpriced – she snorts when she remembers the crappy bar – and is quite surprised when he directs her to a tiny hole-in-the-wall festooned with fairy lights. The bar staff are all female and look very friendly, and the menu – such as it is, in a place that basically only serves cocktails – is full of quirky names and combinations Joss would never imagine putting together in a drink. Finch has claimed one of the little tables at the back, and smiles at her as she weaves her way towards him.

The first thing she notices is that he looks tired. And if she’s noticing that Finch looks tired, he’s probably keeping himself upright with caffeine and pain meds alone. He’s normally much better at hiding it – Joss suspects him of using concealer on the bags she’s certain he never really loses. He must notice her looking, because he gives her a Finch sort of smile, and recommends the Take Me To Church.

Joss does try to be dubious, but when it comes the drink is rich and spicy-sweet, sinfully good, and she’s pretty sure she actually makes a noise as she tastes it. Finch has a smug look on his face when she opens her eyes again, and Joss would glare at him, but  _wow._  On balance, she’ll let him have this one.

They talk, between drinks, and Joss finds herself drawn into a conversation that runs the gamut from art and literature to the weirdest thing either of them has ever seen on surveillance footage – Joss once witnessed a man stopping to eat three hot-dogs from a stand and pee on a tree before robbing a convenience store, and Finch, probably through a massive invasion of privacy, happened to see a group of security guards filming a Gangnam Style video. He hadn’t managed to record it, but she almost cries laughing at his description. Along the way, she finds herself intensely grateful she took him up on this. She’s honestly surprised by how much she’s enjoying herself.

They don’t actually drink that much, so Joss is less drunk and more pleasantly buzzed when she offers Finch a sip of her third cocktail. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she raises one right back. He’s the one who asked her on something perilously close to a date, he does not get to complain when she blurs the lines a little.

Finch leans forward, takes the drink out of her hand and takes a sip.

 ~~~

Reasons Joss Carter sleeps with Harold Finch after they finish their drinks

  1. When their eyes meet across the table, she can feel her breath catch and her skin start to heat.
  2. Joss has never used sex as an antidote to the occasional shittiness of her job, but she can see why people do, and she might as well try it out for a change. It seems to work out alright for them.
  3. He’s not exactly Adonis, but his eyes are sharp and kind, and his hands are  _very_ dexterous, and though Joss admits to occasionally being a bit shallow, she’s not _that_ shallow.
  4. He doesn’t bullshit her, doesn’t have any macho crap for her to deal with, doesn’t try to act some kind of big man like the boys she’s gotten used to in the army and on the force; because he’s a genius billionaire vigilante who looks at her like she’s an equal, like she’s on his level and he’d never think otherwise for a second.
  5. John hasn’t even mentioned their kiss, and while a very large part of her wishes he had, while the fact that he hasn’t  _hurts_ her, she can’t wait forever. She likes to think he wouldn’t ask her to, that whatever issue he’s working through that makes him act as though nothing has happened, he’d tell her if he only needed her to wait.
  6. She’s tired of being the perfect supercop Madonna who can do no wrong, who can't never do wrong; because some days she feels everyone’s eyes on her, Fusco’s, John’s, all the damn rookies in the city, waiting for her to be good, to be perfect, to be the shining pillar of righteousness that leads them forward – and she tries not to resent them, but she’s only human, and people keep  _forgetting that;_  because carrying everyone’s moral compasses is starting to weigh her down.
  7. She likes him.
  8. She wants to.
  9. She’s here, and he’s here, and despite every godawful thing that’s tried to drag the both of them down, despite the unknown but surely horrible things that gave him his injuries and his wounded eyes and his paranoia, despite the evil, crooked men who gave her two new bullet scars in her chest and a dark, bleak anger to go with them on the cold nights when everything is shit and she wants to tear her own skin off, they’re both still breathing. That’s something that deserves a celebration.
  10. Why the hell not.



 ~~~

When Joss wakes up in the hotel room Harold got them, she’s surprised at herself. She’d meant to go home at some point, to try and avoid any morning-after awkwardness. But she’d been so sleepy after the fourth orgasm Harold had somehow gotten out of her – she’s never managed more than two before, so she was very, very impressed – and he hadn’t tried to sneak away either –

Her eyes snap open at the thought, and she jerks upright, head twisting to meet Harold’s eyes. He’s sitting up in bed, doing something with his smartphone that might well be highly illegal, and not in any way looking like someone who got caught preparing to do a runner. Noticing her face, he asks “Something the matter, Detective?”

She snorts a laugh and drops back onto the pillows. This man, she swears. “Seriously? All those crazy things you did to me last night, and we’re still not on first name terms? I’m hurt, Harold.”

“As I recall,” he says, smiling a happy little Finch-smile, “I’m not the only one who surprised last night.”

“What can I say,” she grins at him, “I’m a considerate date.”

The hotel room must be the sort that she doesn’t want to know the price of, because the sheets are even softer than her ones at home, and she relaxes back into them with a happy sigh. It’s her day off, she just woke up from a wonderful sleep after some of the best sex of her life, and Harold isn’t clamming up on her. In a few minutes, she’ll drag herself up to check that Taylor got her hasty message last night and went to bed at a reasonable hour, and maybe see about ordering some breakfast. She’ll bet this hotel does the good stuff.

But first, she’ll give herself a minute of nothing at all. By her count, she’s earned that much many times over.

 ~~~

Reasons why Joss Carter continues to sleep with Harold Finch

  1. God. Damn. The man knows what to do with his hands,  _and_ with his dick. She’s pretty sure the sex qualifies as a religious experience sometimes, and she doesn’t even feel bad saying that. The Lord will surely understand.
  2. He never does become awkward, and he doesn’t even try to sneak away after the second time – she woke up as he tried to slip out and told him that unless he gave her two good reasons for him to leave, neither of them self-deprecating or ‘for her own good’, she was going to get up and physically drag him back into bed with her. Smart man that he is, he’d just sighed and lay back down, drawing her to him again. That was the night she found out how well she actually knew Harold Finch.
  3. He lets her lie all over him, like she prefers – sadly, spooning is out, but she isn’t complaining too loud, this works just as well, maybe even better – and doesn’t grope her ass once. Joss has always felt there is a time and a place for ass groping, and drifting off to sleep is absolutely not that place. She hasn’t needed to tell him that once. It’s a small thing, but it makes her happy how neatly they seem to fit together.
  4. Every morning she wakes up with to his warm smile and the gentle back-and-forth between them is a morning she feels lighter, and happier, and more at peace with the world.
  5. She does like him, a lot, even when they get into half-angry arguments about legality and morality where half the time neither of them say what they mean; because he’s so intelligent and so kind, because he has so many little habits and tucked-away secrets, and she can’t help but treasure each one he lets her see.
  6. He makes stupid jokes and puns sometimes, and he holds her like she’s something not fragile, but precious – because he looks at her like he sees every bit of her, and he thinks it makes the most wonderful picture he’s ever seen.
  7. He makes her break out the similes to describe the way he looks at her.
  8. She’s yet to find a good enough comparison for how she feels when he looks at her. She just knows it’s good, and it feels more right than anything has in a good long while.
  9. The world owes her this.
  10. She owes herself this.
  11. Shaw keeps making awful corny jokes every time they see each other, and those  _do_ make Harold awkward, but only in the cutest way.



 

Reasons why Joss Carter probably shouldn’t continue to sleep with Harold Finch

  1. She’s getting attached, so fast it makes her head spin, and there are so many reasons why that’s a bad idea: 
    * The second-to-last time she had a serious relationship, she spent years sorting out the mess in her head and her son’s. They’ve only gotten on speaking terms again two years ago.
    * The time after that, he went and died on her, and she’s still trying to fix what  _that_  did to her. She spent months using Cal’s death to push herself forward, and now she doesn’t need to carry him on her back anymore, she doesn’t know how to let herself heal.
    * Harold was once very badly broken, she’s sure of that, and he healed from it like she healed from Cal – to a point where he can be functional, but not a whole lot further. He’s screwed up in ways she’s only just beginning to understand, after three years of working with him, and it’s highly likely that he’s just not ready for this.
    * It’s highly likely that she’s not ready for this.
    * Horrible as this sounds, Harold makes himself no shortage of enemies, and one day one of those enemies might find his girlfriend, and from there find his girlfriend’s son. Harold is dear to her, but Taylor will always come first. Thankfully, she’s fairly sure he gets that, but the fear remains.
    * One day Harold will die, probably long before his time, and she will have to deal with that. God strike her for a coward, but she doesn’t want to deal with that.
    * One day she will die, probably long before her time, and she can’t actually bear to think about what that would do to Harold.
    * …no, that deserves a whole bullet point of its own.
  2. John might never forgive her.



 ~~~

Despite all the reasons she shouldn’t, she  _is_. Hook-ups become dates become both become Joss staring at an open case file planning ways to introduce Harold to Taylor. At that point, she throws her hands up in the air and tells Fusco they’re going drinking. He doesn’t even start to argue – her partner’s been giving her worried looks all day, and he’s probably eager to find out what the hell is up with her.

If Joss knew, she’d tell him.

As is, she snatches his phone out his pocket when they get settled and turns it off, before doing the same to her own. She shoots the nearest security camera a sharp look, waits a bit while ignoring Fusco’s fidgeting, and then drops her head onto the bar. Twice. Hard.

On the third time, she just lets it stay there. Fusco orders their drinks and reassures the bartender that no, she’s not crazy, she’s just having “one of those weeks, you know.” When a beer is pushed into the side of her head she makes a deep groaning noise and flaps her hand around till it connects with it, then shoves herself upright and drinks deep. She knows she’s being dramatic, but she doesn’t give much of a shit. If the world’s gonna throw her curveballs like Harold Finch she gets to complain about it sometimes.

Fusco’s worried look has morphed into a full-on frown. “Carter, don’t get offended or nothing, but do you need me to beat someone up for you?”

She gives him a dirty look for that, and points out “If I did need someone beat up, you know full well I’d do it my own damn self.”

“Hey, easy,” he says, raising his hands, and she’d be offended but it’s Fusco. She knows, at this point, that he’s only teasing – at this point, she can’t imagine working with anyone else. He’s her partner; death do they part, as he quipped once from her hospital bed. So she sighs and gives him the basics.

“So I’ve been sleeping with Finch for a few weeks, and now I think we’re going steady, and I really, really don’t know what to do.” She’d manoeuvred herself so that when he chokes on his drink, she doesn’t get any splatter. She slaps him firmly on the back a couple of times as he wheezes, and waves off the bartender, who’s probably be thinking of kicking them out by now if he didn’t look so entertained. Finally, he gets his breath back.

“You know, for a moment there, I could have sworn you said you were hooking up with Glasses.” The look in his eyes practically begs her to correct him – she almost feels bad for nodding. He stares at her for a beat, then lowers his head onto the bar.

“One of those weeks?” the bartender asks as he walks by, grinning now. She grins back, cause she bets they look a right pair. She’d be laughing too.

When Fusco mans up enough to sit back up again, he takes a fortifying gulp of his coke and looks her square on. “So what’s the problem?”

“You know,” Joss replies, looking down at the well-kept wood of the bar and tracing the whorls with the tip of a finger, “I don’t actually know where to start.”

“Try the beginning,” he says, and she does. To his credit, Fusco listens quietly, no eye-rolling or sass. He seems to get that this is serious, and she’s truly grateful to him. By the time she’s finished outlining all the reasons an honest-to-God long-term relationship with Harold is the worst idea – bar the last, cause she wouldn’t betray John like that, not any more than she already is – her beer’s gone lukewarm. She knocks back the remainder with a grimace and lets him put his thoughts together.

Finally, he clears his throat and says, slow and careful, like he wants to make sure every word comes out right – “Life’s short, Carter. Like you said yourself, you or he could die tomorrow, or the day after, or anytime at all. And trust someone who’s been there quite recently, nothing’s worse than knowing you’re about to die and realising how many regrets you have. Turns out, I had plenty.” He sighs, and takes another gulp of coke. “You don’t wanna die knowing there was something wonderful you could have had, but didn’t. You don’t want to go to Glasses’ funeral knowing he never knew just how much you cared about him. You’re the best damn person I’ve ever known, Carter, and you don’t deserve to die with regrets.”

The rush of affection she feels for him in that moment takes her breath clear out her lungs. They’re not huggy, and they’ve both been avoiding eye contact for the whole of Fusco’s little speech, but she reaches out and rests her hand on his arm. “You neither, Fusco.” He gives her that sad little smile, and they sit quietly for a few minutes, before he shifts and clears his throat.

When she motions for him to continue, he ums and ers for a moment before saying, “What about, you know, Wonderboy? How does he feel about all this?”

Joss pushes her spine straight again, and breathes deep. Truth is, she doesn’t know.

She’s sure he knows about them – ex-secret-agent stuff aside, Harold and John are scary levels of co-dependent. She’s pretty sure they spy on each other constantly. It’s their thing, it seems to work for them, she’s not gonna get involved with that, but it does mean John has to know she and Harold are…whatever the hell they are.

They’ve seen each other since the first night she was with Harold, and at first, she didn’t know how to act around him. Only he was exactly normal, nothing different or odd at all. Joss can bluff with the best of them, and poking at him would just put him on the defensive and make him clam up even tighter, so she let it slide. But she’s worried. John is…

John is John. He cares about her, deeply, to a point where it’s almost terrifying, and he  _loves_ Harold. Of that she’s sure. She’s also sure that he hates himself with a quiet, implacable strength that makes her honestly question how he hasn’t killed himself yet.

Joss is good at people – it’s not boasting, just cold fact – and she’s worked with John long enough to understand him. When he found out that she and Harold were hooking up, she’s sure he predicted that it would become something more, and that he’d proceeded to take every dream he allowed himself to have about being happy with Harold one day, and put it in a box in his head, before setting the box on fire. Being John, he’d have gathered up every hope of his being happy, period, and stuffed them in there with the rest.

He probably isn’t even angry with her. If he was, maybe she could have gotten mad too and this all would’ve been much easier, but no. She’d bet money he’s just  _happy_ for them.

 It’s hell, because she  _wants_  Harold, she does, more than she had any idea she ever would. Only she doesn’t see a way to have him without hurting John.

Her life, she swears. Soap opera doesn’t even begin to compare.

Best thing she could do, probably, is tell Harold that John loves him, tell John that Harold loves him back – don’t think she’s missed that, even if Harold seems to have – lock them in a room together, and go home to nurse her broken heart. She’s a big girl, she could probably survive it. She just doesn’t want to, that’s all.

Stupid, selfish, probably downright cruel, but there it is.

Fusco’s face tells her he’s thinking the exact same thing. Eventually he sighs deeply, turns to her, and says “Forget it. Don’t pay any mind to Reese, I can handle him. You go be happy, Carter.”

It’s hell, that’s what it is, Fusco giving her such a stupidly tempting out even as she knows she shouldn’t take it. He must see the aching she can’t quite keep hidden, cause he grunts sharply and jerks to his feet.

“I mean it, Carter, you go right now and find your man, and tell him you want him to meet Taylor next weekend or whatever. Wonderboy’s happiness ain’t your problem, and I promise you we’ll find some way to help him get his head on straight.”

“You can’t expect me to just forget about him, Fusco,” she says softly, trying to hold back the mass of  _want_ in her stomach, spilling over into her chest, that’s telling her to do just that.

“Look, it ain’t your fault Reese didn’t get a word in while he had the chance. Furthermore, no matter what he may think, Glasses ain’t the only person in the world he can ever be happy with. Whereas, you and Glasses have a pretty good thing going on right now, and it’d be a damn shame to spoil that.” Fusco takes a deep breath, looking like he’s about to make another point, before sighing and pushing her coat and phone into her hands. “Now go. Get. Go be happy.”

He’s not going to budge, and she’ll even let herself admit that he’s right. So she takes a deep breath, slings on her coat, and gives him a smile that’s slightly waterier than intended. The sick feeling in her gut at the thought of John unhappy is there, still, but she takes a few deep breaths and lets it dissipate. She’s allowed to do that. She’s allowed to be happy.

Once that last weight is off her shoulders, they feel lighter than they have in…since she brought HR down. Since she looked around her precinct, her city, and knew her own personal hell was over.

Joss fairly runs out of the bar, phone almost falling from her hands in her haste to turn it on. When it finally complies, she dials Harold’s personal, and waits breathless as a teenage girl for him to pick up.

“Hey,” she says when he does, “can I come over? There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?” he says, and she can hear the tapping of keys stop as he turns his attention to her.

“Opposite, actually. Where are you right now?”

He reels off his current address – a lovely little brownstone she’s been in twice before, that if not his home is at least somewhere more than where he sleeps, and the thought of that makes her feel  _honoured_  – and she breaks at least one speed limit getting there, feeling as stupid and light and beautiful as on her first ever date. Now they’ve hung up, him telling her softly to drive safely, she’s suddenly desperate to hear his voice again.

 ~~~

How Joss Carter knows she has made the right decision by confessing her feelings to Harold Finch

  1. The way that as soon as she gets out the suggestion that he might wanna meet Taylor – as soon as she gets through the door – he knows exactly what she means.
  2. The look on his face when he connects the dots, like he’s looking up at the stars somewhere remote on a perfect, cloudless night.
  3. The way his hands cradle her face as they kiss, the way they run themselves down her arms, her back, settle on her hips and pull her as close to him as she’s pulling him to her.
  4. How good it feels to touch him, his bones and his soft places and his warmth, the stiff, solid shape of him in her arms.
  5. How much she never wants to let go.



~~~

Joss is praying hard that Harold and Taylor get along. Literally praying – she’s not ashamed of it. She has next to no idea what Harold would be like with teenagers, even with her teenager, who she can’t help but think is a cut above the rest.

A guilty part of her wishes Taylor was a computer genius or a maths prodigy, just so they’d have something they could talk about.

She needn’t have worried. After some initial awkwardness, Taylor mentions Minecraft, and Harold asks for an explanation. Half an hour later Taylor is demonstrating how to build some house or other and giving him a crash course in some kind of weapons building, and Harold is looking genuinely fascinated and is making suggestions. Joss gets her book and sits on the armchair next to the couch they’re claimed, and keeps an eye on them. She’s pretty sure Harold hacks the game several times, judging by Taylor’s awestruck and impressed noises, but seeing as it’s not a government database she’ll let it be. Later, Harold drops a mention of a war strategy game he plays sometimes, and Taylor’s eyes get big. By the time they’re discussing mods, whatever those are, Joss lets herself relax completely. Thank the Lord for computer games and her son’s poorly hidden inner history geek.

Dinner is totally relaxed after that, and Joss feels like she’ll burst to see two of the people she cares about most in the world chatting happily with her and each other. Taylor doesn’t even get awkward when Harold enquires about school, and considering how he normally looks when someone who’s trying to get into her pants acts even a little bit like a dad, she’ll take that as the best seal of approval he can give her.

Harold has to leave shortly after dinner – another number, he says softly, and one day soon she’s gonna sit him down and make him tell her the whole story about his machine – and when Taylor asks, in his roundabout teenage way, when Harold’s gonna come round again, she resists the urge to pat herself on the back. Job done and done well.

The hard apple core of guilt sitting in her gut hasn’t faded yet, might never fade. But maybe Fusco’s right and that isn’t really her problem.

Yeah, maybe HR wasn’t her problem either.

She does feel bad for making herself push thoughts of John out of her head, but it’s self-preservation. Thinking about the whole mess of it for too long will drive her mad. Best to put it out of her head and let herself be happy, if only for a little while. She’s home with her boy, she can put her feet up and finish her book, and the dreaded introduction went supremely well, if she does say so herself.

Happiness is the tamest word for it, really, for the all-encompassing warmth she gets while watching her son stack the dishwasher, still feeling Harold’s goodbye kiss tingling on her lips. But it’s the best one she can come up with, so it’ll have to do.

 

 

 

**_part two: John_ **

Reason John is happy for Carter and Finch

  1. Because sometimes Finch looks at his phone and gets this dopey little smile on his face, and it’s not like anything John’s ever seen on him before.
  2. Because Carter looks like someone took a weight of her shoulders whenever he sees her at crime scenes and various back alleys.
  3. Because he and Shaw once heard the tail end of what sounded very much like a ‘You hang up – no you hang up’ and he had to punch Shaw to distract her from interrupting.
  4. Because Finch is actually a genuinely good person, and if there’s one thing John is certain of, it’s that Harold Finch does emphatically not deserve to be alone. If karma wants to function as it should for once, then it couldn’t have happened to a better person.
  5. Because Carter isn’t like him and Shaw, she’s not going to die in a back alley somewhere and go unmourned, and she shouldn’t have to live like them either.
  6. Because they’re both very dear friends, and their happiness is precious to him.
  7. Because it’s not a pair he ever would have considered, but now he’s seen them together, he can’t imagine how he didn’t notice it before.



(He’s only seen them together once – Finch met Carter on the edge of one of her crime scenes, and they walked off together. He’d stood and watched as Finch leaned over to say something in Carter’s ear, and she threw her head back and laughed, giving him one of those smiles that light her whole face up. Finch had ducked his head and they’d walked on, not holding hands or looping arms, but still managing to project an aura of closeness and warmth. John had not been proud of how he’d turned and fairly ran.

They both looked so  _happy._ )

 ~~~

Shaw is the one who locates him, and he’s stupidly grateful he’d taken Plan B, a long brooding walk through the park, and hadn’t yet gotten round to Plan A, which had been drinking himself under some bar or other and maybe picking a fight with its occupants on the way down. This is much more dignified.

Still, the way Shaw looks at him, you’d think she had found him passed out in his own vomit under a park bench. Evidently, he looks really pathetic.

He’d ask her to take pity on him, but it’s Shaw.

She gives him a once-over than almost makes him feel shame, before grabbing his arm and dragging him into the closest all-night diner. When he shoots her a questioning look, she glares at him and snaps “If I have to babysit you all night, I’m getting food out of it. You’re paying.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, resisting the urge to run.

It’s probably too late now, anyway. If he managed to get anywhere she’d just tackle him, and then he’d have to explain to Finch why the two of them had a fight in public. Not worth it.

After she’s found them a booth and made a valiant attempt to order the whole kitchen, Shaw stares at him for a good three minutes before she tells him, bluntly, “I’m on suicide watch. Fusco’s orders.”

“Did he use that exact wording?” he manages to get out, through suddenly gritted teeth.

“Nah,” she tells him, staring at him like she’s taking him apart, muscle and bone and organs. She probably knows where they all are better than he does. “He just told me to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid. I extrapolated.”

“You know, I’m not actually a suicide risk.”

“You sure?” He gives her his best blank look, and she smirks a little. “You know, if you wanted to fuck her that badly, you could have just told her before she got a boyfriend.”

No, Shaw, he couldn’t have. There are plenty of perfectly good reasons why he couldn’t have. But he doesn’t feel like explaining himself right now, especially not to his partner. He highly doubts she’d understand, or accept his reasoning.

Thankfully, the first lot of Shaw’s food turns up then, so she’s too busy eating to do less important things like talk to him. John manages to snag some fries for himself – if he’s going to pay, then he might as well get something out of it. She glances at him, and evidently decides he can live. He eats his fries.

When Shaw’s polished off the food, grudgingly letting him help occasionally, she goes back to staring at him. He stares back and imagines how she might be seeing him, dotted black lines separating his various body parts like a diagram of meat cuts. Arteries and veins in red and blue. Different organ systems colour-coded for convenience. He looks away.

He very nearly has to supress a flinch when she speaks. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

John looks hard at her, but she doesn’t look like she’s kidding. She looks like she’s actually curious. He realises, quite suddenly, how stupid and pointless and  _weird_  this must look to her, and it almost makes him want to hug her. For her to put up with all their shit when she doesn’t actually understand, at the core of it, _why_ they do these things must take incredible amounts of patience and…whatever her equivalent of affection is. But no, Shaw would probably interpret it as pity, and she’s made it very clear that any sign of pity from him  _vis a vis_  her personality disorder will end in a case for Detective Carter. Still, he feels like he owes her some sort of explanation.

“It wasn’t exactly deliberate,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, I figured that one out all by myself. I mean why didn’t you just tell her?”

This is actually painful. Shaw was right to look at him like that, he is being properly pathetic. Kara would be splitting her sides right about now. “Because, Shaw, she deserves better.”

She sits back, head slightly cocked. “Oh, so it’s a self-hatred thing. Go figure.”

“At least I’m consistent,” he says, and actually smiles at the thought. Nice to know he’s still got the dark humour going for him.

Shaw is probably questioning his sanity right now, but he doubts she had a high estimation of it to begin with, so that’s alright. “What are you going to do about it?” she asks. He can’t tell if it’s out of some Shawish version of concern, or whether she’s making sure he’ll still be functional for the mission. Maybe it’s so she can laugh at him. Who knows.

“Ignore it until it goes away?”

She nods, and they watch the sudden rain trickle down the diner windows for a bit. It’s nice, John reflects, that she doesn’t try to talk him out of his unhealthy coping mechanisms. Then she turns back to him, a considering look on her face.

“Wanna go start a bar fight?”

“God, yes,” he says, and pays the bill.

Finch will probably give him a ‘Mr Reese, why do you insist on doing these things?’ look when he gets in tomorrow, with a side helping of ‘I really expected you to do better than this’. John’s almost looking forward to it.

 ~~~

 Things that confuse John

  1. How Bear has not yet become overweight from all the treats they communally slip him.
  2. How Shaw can berate them for feeding Bear human food when she is the biggest culprit, does she not know how much of a hypocrite she’s being or does she just not care?
  3. How Zoe can stand to touch him.
  4. Whether Shaw is sleeping with Root or not. And if yes, why she would possibly be motivated to do something like that. Love yourself, Shaw. Stop sleeping with terrifyingly unpredictable hitwomen.
  5. Inception, still.
  6. How Harold manages to look so unassuming.
  7. That sometimes, people trust him. Hug him, even, when he saves them.
  8. Hipsters.
  9. Facebook.
  10. Why he appears to be in love with two people, at equal intensity, at the same time, and why in the name of God those two people had to be in a relationship with each other. Also, what exactly he’s meant to do with that information.
  11. Why Lolita is considered a literary classic when it is essentially a monster trying to justify his crimes entirely from his perspective. With very nice prose, admittedly, but no-one considers Mein Kampf a literary classic – well, except Nazis, and he feels perfectly comfortable dismissing their opinion.
  12. Quantum physics. He’s not stupid, by any means, but some things are best left to people like Harold. Personally, he’s always preferred biology and chemistry to physics. Less cold, less impersonal, less immovable. Messier. More fun.



 ~~~

Their latest number, Ry Schatzlein, is a sci-fi author who apparently loves inventing whole alien civilizations and making them as complex and realistic as possible, who works part time as a barista at a nice little coffee shop. Ze has no debt, no dubious acquaintances, and is by all accounts a very nice sort of person. John can’t help but suspect a hate crime – ze’s quite open about being…non-gendered? Is that the word? He’ll have to google it. Still, after stopping by the coffee shop ze works at for some recon, he can’t imagine how even the most virulent bigot would want to hurt zir. Ze’s a thoroughly decent person, as far as he can tell. Shaw stops by later and agrees with him, although she words it as “Sickeningly nice, I bet they play with shelter puppies on their off day.”

“Mx Schatzlein uses ze/zir pronouns, Miss Shaw,” Finch admonishes.

“Yeah, well, not all of us have an encyclopaedic knowledge of non-binary pronouns, Finch,” Shaw retaliates grouchily, and John snaps his fingers.

“That’s the word.”

Shaw gives him one of her scathing looks. It’s a very good one. “See, at least I know the damn word for it.”

She stays in the shop to sample some of their cake and keep an eye out while John follows up on their only lead – Carter unearthed a statement Schatzlein gave recently about witnessing a murder. Ze didn’t see much, just the aftermath. Zir statement describes a masked man running to a car and peeling away, too fast for ze to get the licence plates. Ze had tried to stop the man from bleeding out, but he’d been pronounced dead on the scene.

Carter gets herself on the case, and reports back quickly that she’s got some suspicions about the dead man’s work. The two of them visit his apartment and do a little digging, and it turns out he was a money launderer for one of the newer arms of the Russian mob. According to the guy John beats up in a dive bar frequented by their people, the guy got greedy, tried to take some for himself, and got taken out for it.

“So our number witnessed a mob hit,” Carter says softly. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Ze saw too much,” he agrees, almost at the exact same time that Shaw reports “I don’t like the look of the newest customer, people.”

“I’m on my way,” John tells her, nodding goodbye to Carter and liberating a motorcycle, making his way to the coffee shop as quickly as possible.

“As ever, your instincts are spot on, Miss Shaw,” Finch breaks in a few minutes later. “The Green Bean’s newest patron was arrested in connection to the Russian mob five years ago, and released recently for good behaviour.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be very well behaved,” Shaw murmurs. “Schatzlein’s shift’s almost up. Ze’s getting ready to leave.”

“Miss Shaw, someone’s getting into position in the alley behind the coffee shop. It looks like he’s armed,” Finch tells her. “What’s your location, Mr Reese?”

“Just arrived,” he says as he pulls up outside the shop. “Which of our new friends do you want to introduce yourself to, Shaw?”

“You get Alley Dude and I’ll follow Good Behaviour out” she tells him, and he murmurs an affirmative and slips into the alleyway. The man skulking by the dumpsters is probably new to this – he’s too wired to notice John sidling up behind him until he bounces his head off the alley wall. A moment later, a door opens further down and Schatzlein walks out, halting in shock as soon as ze sees the unconscious body on the floor and John standing over it. Ze’s attention is promptly drawn to Good Behaviour crumpling at the mouth of the alley as Shaw pistol-whips him, and ze goes for zir taser. Smart person.

“Easy,” John raises his arms. “We just saved your life there, maybe you could not tase us?”

“Who were those guys? For that matter, who the fuck are you?” Schatzlein sounds fairly panicked, but zir grip on the taser is very steady. John’s not sure how ze plans to deal with the both of them, but is willing to give zir points for trying and good aim.

“We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,” Shaw puts in. “That help?”

“They were Russian mob,” John tells zir, giving Shaw a side-eye that she happily ignores. “You witnessed a mob hit recently, and they’re trying to cover their tracks.”

“But…I didn’t see the licence plate, or the shooter’s face, or…” Ze bites zir lip, glancing down at the gun still in Alley Dude’s hand. “They don’t care, do they?”

“No, they don’t.” John takes a cautious step towards zir, hands still raised. “You should come with us. The people after you are stupid but they won’t stop coming. They’re also stupid enough that they don’t care what risks they’re taking. That makes them dangerous. We can get you somewhere safe until we manage to persuade them to leave you alone.”

Ze looks conflicted for a second, before heaving a sigh and pocketing zir taser. “Okay, fine, let’s go.”

Shaw bends and lifts Good Behaviour into a fireman’s carry, while John zip-ties Alley Dude and calls Fusco to their location. He’d offer to carry Good Behaviour for Shaw, but he likes to think he knows better. Instead he jacks them a car and gets it started, indicating Schatzlein to take shotgun. Shaw dumps Good Behaviour in the back and slides in after him, and John pulls away to the safehouse, giving Finch a quick update.

Shaw gets to pistol-whip Good Behaviour again on the ride. Schatzlein winces, but grins a little too.

 ~~~

Reasons John does what he does

  1. Guilt.
  2. Related to that, a stupid blind hope for some sort of redemption. He blames his foster family’s Catholicism. Not that he hasn’t tried, but he’s never quite been able to buy out of it. not completely.
  3. Finch asked him to. Needs him to. That’s about as much as he’s ever going to get from Finch, he gets that, but it’s enough to keep him here.
  4. His co-workers aren’t half bad, on balance. Certainly better than his last set. Shaw might make credible attempts on his genitals and nerve clusters on the regular, but after their first meeting she hasn’t made another attempt on his life. Finch is certainly better than Snow.
  5. Really, what else would he be doing?
  6. Sometimes he gets to beat the shit out of rapists and abusers. Those are good days. Even if sometimes he finds it kind of hard to put the darkness back in its box afterwards.
  7. Sometimes, when he’s been a good vigilante and not killed anyone, and only shot the people who absolutely needed to be shot, and he’s kept the darkness all tucked away safe in his ribcage, Carter looks at him like she’s completely, untaintedly sure that he is good and necessary. Those days, he can almost convince himself of the same.
  8. No, seriously, what else could he possibly do? He’s open to suggestions.



 ~~~

Ry Schatzlein’s little problem is eventually solved with a little hacking, a lot of financial blackmail, and the judicious application of John’s trusty grenade launcher. He loves that grenade launcher. Shaw keeps trying to steal it, but she can go and get her own. This one’s his.

When he tells her this, after stealing it back from her for probably the fifth time, she says snappishly, “You let Carter borrow it.”

“No, Shaw, you stole it from me and gave it to Carter.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t ask for it back. She had to give it to you.” She gives him a triumphant non-expression, like she’s just caught him in a massive hypocrisy, and he’s about to cave and let her have the grenade launcher.

Truth be told, he really hadn’t minded. Absolute truth be told, he’d rewatched the surveillance footage of her firing at the truck and gotten a strange, ridiculous thrill at watching her using  _his_  grenade launcher to wreck such destruction.

Shaw’s eyes narrow, and she stares hard at him. When Ry wanders up to them and thanks them, quiet but obviously deeply heartfelt, he’s ridiculously grateful to zir.

Shaw dismisses the thanks in her normal way and slips off, leaving him to deal with the emotions as she always does. He’s barely more equipped for it that she is, but they’ve had this argument before, and after weighing up both sides and Shaw attempting to stab him a little bit, he’d conceded her point. He now handles the aftermath of the missions while she leaves to do Shawish things somewhere else, and in return she patches him up when he invariably messes something up, and doesn’t rat him out to Finch.

So he lets ze thank him, and smiles, and tells zir that he was only doing his job. When ze jokingly asks what exactly that job is, he realises that he’s yet to think of a word for it. He keeps meaning to do that.

He tells zir this, and gets a laugh. “Guardian angel? You certainly look the part.”

John hadn’t missed that ze was attracted to him, and he certainly isn’t missing the flirting. So when ze asks to buy him a drink, he isn’t surprised.

He is surprised when he finds himself saying yes.

 ~~~

Rationalisations for his actions that John thinks up on the way to a bar Ry likes

  1. Ry is a very good looking person, and ze has a lovely smile.
  2. Ze is also, as far as John can tell, a very nice sort of person, and ze has been intriguingly steady throughout all of this. He’s gotten used to civilians collapsing under the weight of immediate potential death, and finding someone who manages to keep a positive outlook, and even cracks a few jokes, is the kind of anomaly he wants to take out for a drink. He’s always been drawn to people out of the ordinary, which explains a lot of his life choices.
  3. While he’s never been very interested in aliens – the world is strange enough, he doesn’t need strangeness from other planets too – talking about the various biological and sociological possibilities of different alien species turns out to be very engaging, even fun. Shaw must never find out about this, he decides. He would never hear the end of it.
  4. This would hardly be the first time he’s slept with a number (Zoe definitely counts).
  5. John’s always considered himself bisexual, but the queer theory he’s been reading up on recently tells him that bisexual is technically attraction to two or more genders, and he’s always viewed labels as little more than guidelines anyway.
  6. Perhaps this is what he needs. Not entirely what he wants, sure, but he can’t have the people he wants – you’d think he’d be used to that by now.
  7. Ry asked nicely.



 ~~~

They barely get through the door before Ry is pressing up against him again and he wraps his arms around zir and meets zir mouth with his again, again. Ze is wearing perfume, he realises suddenly, vanilla. It reminds him of zir workplace, and he huffs a laugh against zir lips. Ry is a good kisser, smart and flexible, and he tries desperately to remove any thoughts of how Carter or Finch might kiss him. Not the place, not the time, not –

John mentally curses himself as Ry pulls away and looks straight at him, eyes worryingly piercing. Something must have bled through, something that tipped ze off. Goddamn it.

“You, John Reese,” Ry says softly, and he braces himself, “are definitely not as in to this as you should be. I know I’m good at kissing, so it can’t be on my end.” He lets himself laugh a little at that, can’t help but appreciate zir trying to make light of the situation.

Ze tugs his arm over to the ratty couch pushed against one wall, and he lets zir push him down on to it. Ze sits beside him, putting a little distance between them, and he appreciates that even more, ze letting him regroup.

“Now,” ze says, “tell me what the problem is.”

He can’t. He won’t. Putting things into words brings those things into the room, makes them things that must be faced instead of pushed away. He can’t make himself do that.

Ry sighs. “Fine, I’ll guess. Did someone hurt you?”

John shakes his head, wondering at that being the first thing ze jumps to. Goddamn, this really wasn’t fair on ze, zir’s far too good for this.

“Okay, well thank God for that. Is it…” Ze curls into zirself a little, and he only just stops himself reaching out to zir. “Please tell me it’s not the gender thing.”

“No, really no. I promise,” he hastens to say, and ze heaves a relieved sigh.

“So…wait, is there someone else?”

“I’m not in a relationship, no” he says, and ze shakes zir head.

“Not what I meant, John. You’re not the kind of guy that cheats, I can tell that right off. I meant, is there someone else you want?” He hates himself for flinching, he genuinely does. Ry rests zir hand gently on his arm. “John? I’m not pissed off, I promise.”

“Sorry,” he tells zir, not really knowing what else to say. “This wasn’t fair on you, was it?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve been there, trust me. You’re allowed to try and get over them.”

“Emphasis on try, apparently,” he says past the treacherous lump in his throat, and ze snorts.

“Still, you get A for effort.”

They sit in silence for a little, before ze asks “Do you want to talk about it?” At his look, ze smiles softly and says “I’m a good listener.”

“It’s stupid.”

“You look pretty cut up for it to be that stupid,” ze replies, and John takes a few deep breaths.

“I’m in love with two different people, who happen to be together.” There. He said it. The world has not imploded. He’s scared to look at Ry, but ze rests zir hand on his arm. It feels nice, physical contact with no expectation behind it, comfort for comfort’s sake.

“Well.” Ze pauses, and he lets his smile stretch as far across his face as it’s ever going to at zir tone of voice. It is funny, absurd. That he can fall for not one, but two so incredible people when he is…himself. Ze nudges him with zir shoulder. “Don’t do that smile, it looks too defeatist. There are options here.”

“Enlighten me,” he says, and prides himself on the lack of bitterness there.

“Actually, Mr Martyr, I can see a very simple solution to this. Are they definitely in a closed relationship?”

He stares at zir for a few seconds before he figures out what ze is talking about. Then he takes a few minutes to find a way to put the immediate horrible ache in his gut into words. Finally, he settles with “I think having them for only a night would actually be worse, to be honest.”

“Wait, what? No, John,” ze pulls on his shoulder and makes him face zir. “I didn’t mean like that. I meant as a permanent thing. A triad.”

“What?”

Ze sighs. "Okay. I see. Education mode activated.”

It takes a good few minutes, but he finally gets his head securely around the idea. It’s…

“No offense,” he says softly, “but I almost wish you hadn’t told me that.”

“I’ll try not to take any. I’d appreciate it if you told me why, though.”

John makes himself meet zir eyes. “Because hope hurts, Ry.”

That actually gets him a hug, fierce and tight, and he can’t help but cling on for dear life. No-one’s hugged him in a good long while.

They don’t end up sleeping together, but Ry does give him zir number, and he deliberately does not lose it. He promises to stop by The Green Bean soon, and makes zir promise to call him if ze has any more need of his kneecapping skills.

He leaves zir apartment with a lot to think about, and a solid aching ball of…something…settled deep in his stomach. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to shift it now.

 ~~~

Reasons hope hurts

  1. He’s fairly sure opening a relationship is not something anyone would take lightly, and is probably something that could unbalance it forever. If so, he would never forgive himself.
  2. Harold is almost certainly not attracted to him.
  3. Joss is almost certainly not attracted to him. He kissed her, once, in the heat of the moment, when both of them thought they were going to die. Neither of them followed up on it. That certainly does not equal attraction. 
    * True, that was mostly his fault, but he had his reasons. Cowardice being most of them does not mean that the rest weren’t perfectly decent reasons. He swears.
  4. Even if either of them were, they both know him far too well to ever consider letting him anywhere near their bed, let alone their hearts.
  5. He doesn’t deserve them.
  6. He will never deserve them.
  7. He will need too much, and ask for too much, and they will get angry, or disgusted, or sick of him.
  8. He will fuck it up. He just will. This is what he does. This is what Harold hired him to do.
  9. All of this is hypothetical anyway, because there is no way he would ever ask them to put their happiness on the line for him.
  10. That too is hypothetical, because it’s highly doubtful they would put their happiness on the line for him anyway. Both Joss and Harold are very smart people, they could do the odds.
  11. Happiness is for other people.
  12. The last person he loved like he loves Joss and Harold died when he was half a world away, obeying the orders of the people who had also ordered his death. It almost killed him. If that happens again, to either of them, there would be no almost.



(A traitorous little part of him is whispering,  _worth it_.)

 

 

 

**_part three: harold_ **

Jocelyn teases him, sometimes, about referring to sex as ‘making love’. Once, when she’d pinned him to a wall for a good half hour while she teased him, chuckling into his mouth as he gasped and moaned and finally begged just once, and he’d retaliated by leaving bite marks everywhere he could reach, she’d asked him  _Does this qualify?_  He hadn’t dignified that with a response.

It had. Sex with Jocelyn always does.

She’s right, it’s saccharine and old-fashioned, carrying connotations that are far tamer than their relationship merits, half the time. But it is love that he makes to her. Love for every sound that leaves her mouth, for how her skin grows gleaming and bright with sweat as she gets closer to her climax, the way she laughs and snarls and throws her head back as she comes.

Not that he can bring himself to take that thought to its logical conclusion, mind. And not that he’s ready to say anything about it.

The truth is, he is the worst kind of coward, and she is as brave as a wolverine. She will take down prey three, four, ten times her size and never once allow herself to consider that she could be stopped. The truth is, she is far too good for him.

But Jocelyn has made perfectly clear, on several occasions, exactly what she thinks of that kind of talk. He won’t insult her with it anymore.

Jocelyn told him, once, when she was just on the edge of sleep, that he reminds her that she isn’t the only one who has to keep the world from falling apart, and he had ached for how alone she must have been, during the long hard road to destroying HR.  But she isn’t alone anymore.

Harold’s fairly sure she knows this, now. He hopes she does. As someone who has been where she was more times than he wants to count, he wouldn’t wish it on anyone, certainly not the woman he may just be in love with.

 ~~~

A list of the things Harold Finch considers important

  1. The safety of the world and its peoples and, as an extension to that, the security of the Machine.
  2. Jocelyn Carter, and Taylor Carter by extension.
  3. John Reese.
  4. Sameen Shaw.
  5. Bear.
  6. The numbers.
  7. Grace Hendricks.
  8. Will Ingram.
  9. The continued health, happiness and safety of his loved ones, although that goes without saying.
  10. The happiness of the greatest amount of innocent people possible.
  11. The punishment of the greatest amount of guilty people possible.
  12. The continued soundness of his mind – it’s really the only thing he has, at the end of the day.
  13. Some form of art and literature continuing, somehow, into the future.
  14. Beautiful things.
  15. Peace.



 ~~~

After their case with Mx Schatzlein is wrapped up, John goes back to zir apartment. Harold…

Harold has absolutely no right to feel anything about this development but happiness that his dear friend will not be alone, at least for a night. Maybe even longer – Mx Schatzlein is, from his observations of zir while they were in the safehouse, a thoroughly decent person, intelligent and kind. The sort of person who might be good for John, if he lets zir.

Besides the fact that he is John’s employer, and absolutely is in a position of power over him, besides the fact Harold is currently in a committed relationship, he simply has no  _right_  to feel like this. This – this  _jealously_ , it’s ridiculous and horribly unfair on both John and Jocelyn.

He tries to keep it locked down, keep it from Jocelyn, but she notices. Of course she does. She’s a police detective and former Army interrogator, and she knows him too well. And unlike Grace or Nathan, she never allows any of his lies to stand.

He’s certain he used to be better at this.

“So tell me,” she says, while they’re relaxing in her bedroom after dinner, Bear napping on his dog bed in the corner, and them stretched out on the bed. She doesn’t even pretend not to be interrogating him. At least she’s direct.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he tries. Jocelyn gives him a look.

“It’s stupid,” he tries. He gets an eye roll for that.

“Harold, love, I used to be a beat cop. There is no way it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant.” He turns himself so he can see her full on. “It’s…not something I’m proud of. To be quite frank, you’ll probably be angry with me.”

He doesn’t actually close his eyes, but it’s a struggle. Jocelyn’s gaze is unbearably soft. “Look, unless you’re telling me you’ve cheated or otherwise betrayed my trust, it’s probably all good.”

“I would never,” he tells her quickly, and she gets up from her armchair and moves to sit beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. She does that a lot – he’s sure he must be terribly bony, but she’s never once complained.

“I know that, Harold. But give me something, okay?”

He really is a coward.

“Mr Reese went back to our latest number’s apartment,” he forces himself to say.

Jocelyn’s expression seems to tighten, something pinching around her eyes. “Okay,” she says, drawing out the second syllable. “Do you not like the, uh, the person, or what? Cause ze seemed perfectly alright to me.”

“Not at all.” He looks down at his hands, can’t bear to look at her. She sighs deeply and catches them, drawing them to her lips.

“Oh Harold,” she says softly, “you finally figured it out, huh?”

It takes him a good second to compute her words, and when he does he can’t help but stare at her wonderingly. All this time, and she’d known. Perhaps even before he had…It’s not really that surprising, but it throws him. That she could know he…that he had feelings for someone else and still be intimate with him. He says as much and she laughs, a little darkly.

“Harold, if I were mad at you for loving John, I’d be the world’s greatest hypocrite.”

Again, it takes a second for her meaning to filter through. “You too?” he asks, and manages a tentative smile. He is deeply relieved when he feels her lips curve up against his neck.

“Yeah, love, me too. Thought you’d already guessed.”

“I suppose I’m not quite sure why you would have chased after me when you could have had him.” That’s dangerously close to the kind of talk that she shuts down quickly, but if they’re going to be honest with each other he might as well go all out.

Jocelyn presses a kiss to his shoulder. “You asked me out, remember? ‘Sides, I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t want to be, you know that. God knows I’ve told you often enough.”

He doesn’t apologise, but he does weave their hands together, and he thinks she understands. Eventually Jocelyn presses a kiss to the side of his head, then moves to turn out the lights. He takes his cue from her and slides under the sheets, her body a familiar weight curled over him, head coming to rest in its usual place, just above her heart.

Harold is fairly confident they’re alright. If Jocelyn had any more problems, she would tell him – she doesn’t believe in letting things lie, won’t risk them becoming insurmountable issues when their backs are turned. A leftover from her marriage, she’d told him once. For himself, he’s content to let the matter go for tonight.

He can still feel the last bitter, stomach-souring dregs of the…not jealousy. That’s the wrong word. Something to do with wanting, and not having. Here and now, with Jocelyn warm against him, he can quell it enough to sleep.

Perhaps they will have to talk about this again, he thinks, as he drifts off, listening to Jocelyn and Bear snore almost in tandem, somehow managing to be endearing.

 ~~~

Things Harold Finch remembers about the people he has been in love with

  1. The itchy warmth of a wool sweater pressed against his arm in summer, the tightly corkscrewed curls of her hair gleaming red-brown in the sunlight; graphite and dusty paper as they scrawled equations together, math spilling over the pages of worn old exercise books like water, intoxicated by the neatness of it, by their own intellects and by each other – she’d moved away a few months before his sixteenth birthday, and he’d never gotten up the courage to tell her how he felt.
  2. The boisterous, heady warmth of him, full of life and youth and good cheer – he was always well built and solid, always good with people, when he looked at you it was like the sun was blazing full on your back and you could drown in the warmth; Harold wishes the last smile they’d shared hadn’t been seconds before his death, because now he can’t bring himself to think about it without wanting to cut his heart out of his chest.
  3. Sweet, slightly absent smiles and an infectious, slightly out-of-kilter humour, never anything but purely honest – the world she sees every day is, he thinks, somehow far more lovely than what most people see, and he thinks she knows this, and that is why she tries so hard to share it with everyone she meets; she knows very well that the world could be a terrible place, and yet she still persists in believing in some intrinsic good, in some kind of common human decency.
  4. She thinks tea is for weaklings, and stands toe-to-toe with murderers and crime lords, and once did a dramatic reading of Ovid’s  _Erotic Poems_ with him; she is so kind and generous and brave it steals his breath; once she stubbed her toe on a doorframe and cursed like a sailor for fifteen minutes; she believes in justice and the law, in duty and honour, and manages to make other people believe in it too, as if she’s a candle determined to illuminate the entire blackness of space and somehow it  _works_.
  5. At first Harold hadn’t known what to do with him, with his anger and his broken edges, but he’d watched as time and good work helped him fit himself back together into the kind of person who rescues a dog from Nazis and reads a different book every week and plays go with the same old man every chance he can – or maybe he’d always been that man and he was only now allowing himself to be him again, now that he was sure the war was done; Harold swears he could stare into his eyes for years and never be bored.



 ~~~

“Harold,” Joss is saying, squeezing his arm repeatedly. Thoughtful of her, he thinks muzzily, as he drags his brain out of the dark. Shaking would probably hurt.

“Yes, dearest?” he says, voice sounding as sleep-rumpled as no doubt his hair is.

“Harold, John’s in love with us.”

 _That_  wakes him up just fine. “What?” he gets out, and is fairly sure his voice hits a whole new octave. She shushes him and he shushes, mindful suddenly of the teenager sleeping two doors down. Taylor is a heavy sleeper, but it’s only considerate. “What?” he repeats, quieter this time.

“You heard me. John’s in love with us.”

“How on earth did you reach that conclusion?”

“Well, I woke up about half an hour ago, went to get some water and let Bear downstairs cause he got restless, and I remembered the time he kissed me.”

“John kissed you?”

“Mmm, the night we brought Quinn in, remember? In the bank morgue. We’d thought we were gonna die, so I thought at first it was just that, just a battlefield confession or something. But then I kept thinking about the look in his eyes, and I know what adrenaline looks like. That ain’t it.” She sighs, and rubs a hand over her face. “I think we’ve been idiots, Harold.”

He blinks at her blurred face. “Well, of course he’s in love with you. We already knew that. But I highly doubt John has any feelings for me.”

He’s fairly sure she blinks at him in equal confusion. “You what now? Harold, I never knew _that_.” Then her posture stiffens, and she turns to him. “Wait, did you just say…” Suddenly she starts laughing shakily, hand over her face. “Harold, are you seriously telling me you didn’t know John’s in love with you?”

“John’s not in love with me, good Lord, whatever gave you that idea?” Finally, he turns to fumble for his glasses on the nightstand, until she sighs, puts them on his face herself, and tugs him round to face her again.

“Harold, listen to me. John Reese is in love with you, and has been for about three years now. I know you don’t see it, because Lord knows the two of you have the same damn self-worth issues, but please trust me, yeah? Hell,” she runs a hand over her face again, “why do you think it took me so long to suggest we make this thing official?”

Jocelyn must notice the blank look on his face, because she chuckles. “Love, you should see yourself right now. Blue screen of death.”

It’s not an unfair comparison, he thinks, his mind moving faster than he knew he could, churning through three years’ worth of memories in search of  _something_ , some vague sort of proof. Finding it, improbably, again and again, strange looks he’d discarded and Sencha green every day that had, somewhere along the way, turned from a dig into a gift, that one time someone had taken a shot at him and John had  _mowed_  through them…

“Well, you were right about one thing,” he says at last. “We certainly are idiots.”

That gets him another rusty chuckle. They sit in silence for a little while, holding each other.

“So,” Jocelyn breaks the silence, “how’re we gonna tell him?”

Harold is fairly sure he just blue-screened again.

His lover meets his blank look with a sardonic one of her own. “Of course, we could do what you do and repress this whole conversation, and have him be pining like a puppy for the rest of his life because Heaven forfend we ever try to be happy.”

“I’m sensing some bitterness,” he manages, and she presses her lips together.

“Not bitterness, love, just…is it wrong to be mad that the people I love refuse to let themselves be happy out of some – some guilt complex? I know, I know, you did some shit, you don’t think you deserve happiness or whatever, but you know what? I’ve done plenty I’m not proud of. Remember I told you about Yusuf? I still wake up cold from that. But I do my penance for that, and everything else, every day. So do you. Difference is, I let that be enough.”

His eyes are watering, he realises. He stretches a hand up to wipe the water away.

“You can’t live your whole life denying yourself things cause you think you don’t deserve them, Harold. And someone who’s done as much good as you shouldn’t do it anyways. The pair of you deserve to be happy.”

When he finally meets her eyes, he sees that she, too, is tearing up. He’s always admired that about her, how she lets every one of her emotions play out over her face, wearing her heart bare in front of the world. As if she’s saying,  _This is me. I won’t be anyone else, and you can’t make me_.

“Have I ever told you,” he says softly, “how deeply I admire you, Jocelyn Carter?”

“Couple times, yeah, but it’s still nice to be appreciated.” She kisses him, deep and soft and gentle, and he lets himself relax into her as she is relaxing into him. She pushes him down to the bed and he pulls her with him, until they’re wrapped around each other again, her early-morning breath brushing over his cheek as they trade little kisses.

“So,” she finally says, breaking away to kiss him on the bridge of his nose and then pull back to look him in the eye, “now that’s sorted, how are we gonna tell him?”

 ~~~

Plans Jocelyn Carter and Harold Finch make that night, and the morning after

  1. Write it on a cake – Jocelyn, 2:00 AM, while he’s going down on her.
  2. Hack his cell phone to leave him encrypted messages – Harold, 2:13 AM, while Jocelyn is pressing her lips to everything  _but_ his cock, just to be cruel.
  3. Offer him a collar with their names on it – Jocelyn, 2:17 AM, while he’s thrusting into her; she muffles a laugh in his shoulder when he groans and comes as soon as she suggests it.
  4. Leave a note in a bouquet of flowers – Harold, 2:24 AM, in her ear as they drift off to sleep again.
  5. Just tell him, straight up – Jocelyn, 7:41 AM, as she makes them omelettes, murmured in an undertone as Taylor ducks into the fridge to search for onions and tries to be surreptitious about slipping some bacon to Bear.
  6. Send him on an elaborate scavenger hunt around the city – Harold, 8:21 AM, via text message, making his way to the library and trying to distract himself from thoughts of what John would look like between them.
  7. Make out with him, one at a time, and then drag him off before he tries to escape – Jocelyn, 8:24 AM, via text message, as he arrives at the library and begins gathering the books to piece together their number, as Bear perks his ears up at the noise of John coming in.



 ~~~

Jocelyn follows John and Miss Shaw back to the library after they finish a shootout that eliminates the threats to Miss Nerlekar’s life to everyone’s satisfaction. Harold  _knows_  instantly that she’s planning to do  _something_ , and spends the time it takes for them to return in a haze of cold fear and terrible anticipation. Through it, he somehow manages to force himself to tidy away the photographs on their board, neaten everything to his satisfaction. He brushes his teeth in the little kitchenette, trying to calm his racing heart.

Bear noses at his leg, whining softly. Harold reaches down to scratch behind his ears.

“It’s alright, Bear. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Jocelyn and his errant operatives spill in to the library a few minutes later, talking all at once about some weapon one of Miss Nerlekar’s assailants was carrying. Miss Shaw is making a case for it to be hers, based on the fact that John and Jocelyn have joint custody of the grenade launcher. John wants it known that he was the one who liberated the – is it a gun? Harold’s fairly certain.

In a moment, Harold thinks, his chest is going to split from how hard his heart is beating.

While Miss Shaw is bickering with John, Jocelyn comes over to stand beside him, hand resting warm on his shoulder. “Plan G, yeah?” she murmurs in his ear. When he realises what she means, he stiffens, and then relaxes as she squeezes his shoulder.

“It’s gonna be fine, Harold. Trust me.”

“Always,” he tells her, and then “you first.” Then he turns his chair around, squeezing her hand once before letting it fall. Passingly, he notices the way John looks at that gesture, his eyes filling with a mixture of guilt, pain and a  _want_  that makes Harold nearly shudder.

“Miss Shaw,” he says, “would you mind taking Bear home with you for the night?”

After glancing between them for a second, she replies “Hell no. We’ll have a nice night in, me and him and my new assault rifle.” She shoots John a glare, and he holds his hands up in surrender. Packing the gun away in a duffle, she shoots him and Jocelyn a look which manages to communicate _Mess this up and no-one will ever find your bodies_  quite nicely, before leaving with Bear.

“Hot date tonight?” John enquires, sinking into the battered armchair they’d found a few weeks ago. Harold is impressed at how steady his voice is, now he knows what must be lurking under the surface.

“Something like that,” Jocelyn says. She moves closer to him, almost stalking, and Harold holds his breath.

When she sinks into John’s lap, straddling him and pressing her lips firmly to his, Harold is close enough to see everything. The way his hands jump to her hips, pulling her closer on instinct like a man in the desert desperate for water. How her hands look cradling his face, one reaching down to skim over his neck before settling behind it, gripping firmly. The way John’s eyes slide closed.

The exact moment he realises what he’s doing, and jerks away as if he’s been electrocuted.

John’s eyes skip like frightened rabbits from Jocelyn’s face to Harold sitting in his chair, and he’s frozen, perfectly still. He looks broken open, terrified, desperate.

“John,” Jocelyn says softly, reaching out slowly to fit her hand to his face again, and Harold pushes himself standing, crossing the distance as fast as he can to rest a hand when Jocelyn’s was a moment ago, securely around the base of John’s neck, holding him steady.

“John,” he echoes, trying to pack everything into that one word, and he is so grateful for John’s height as he leans down for a kiss.

John surges to meet him, Jocelyn laughing as she shifts to keep her balance, and then all Harold can think of is John’s lips against his,  _finally_ , and it feels like walking into fire, like coming home, like kissing a man he has loved for three years.

When their lips part, an eternity later, he has to relearn how to breathe.

Jocelyn meets his eyes, her smile bright and burning, and he returns it, almost intoxicated by the look in her eyes, by the warmth of John swaying between them, as if he can’t decide which one to touch first. Then she turns back to John and says, softly, “If you’re not okay with this, now’s a good time to speak up.”

When John finally does, it’s in a cracked whisper. “How could I possibly not be okay with this?”

The softness in Jocelyn’s smile turns sharp, shark-like, and she turns to Harold again. “Hear that voice? And we haven’t even  _done_  anything to him yet.”

And just like that, Harold can feel his mind start to slide into that particular space, the one he uses for games like this. Both he and Jocelyn have an interest in BDSM, but both of them are avowed doms, and have no interest in switching. While the fight that slips in sometimes between them is its own special kind of intoxicating, he would be lying if he said he hadn’t missed having a submissive.

He imagines, for a second how he and Jocelyn’s own particular styles of dominance could intersect here, and his mouth goes dry.

“Well, we can certainly fix that.”

 ~~~

Things that happen in the car journey to the most suitable apartment owned by Harold Finch, in no particular order

  1. Jocelyn calling her son and telling him to stay over at his grandmother’s house, and the resulting “Eww, mom” making John press his lips together to stop himself giving the game away.
  2. Harold desperately trying to keep his eyes on the road while Jocelyn pushes John down and works her mouth over his neck.
  3. Harold trying to stop the both of them from making each other come fully clothed, and consequently Jocelyn shooting him a blazing look in the mirror and asking him if they’re going to fight about this. He’s fairly sure John actually whimpers at that.
  4. Harold almost crashing the car when something Jocelyn does makes John  _whine_ , high and gorgeous.
  5. The running of a red light. He isn’t proud of himself for that, but he maintains it was necessary.



 ~~~

As soon as Harold has disabled his security systems Jocelyn and John are through the door. She herds him into the bedroom and Harold stands back, getting a stellar view of her pushing John up against the wall and pulling him down to kiss roughly, biting at his lips. He returns the kiss with equal vigour, hands going to Jocelyn’s hips and pulling her close, as if they’re trying to merge into a single organism. Harold almost feels blessed to witness it.

The part of him that never quite switches off is already planning the various ways this night could go. Jocelyn is far more gleeful in her sadism than he is, far more hands on. Harold himself prefers to be more remote – ice to her fire, he thinks, and almost laughs at the metaphor. Well, he thinks he can be excused from overdramatising, keeping in mind what he is currently witnessing.

He moves towards the pair and Jocelyn steps back to join him, both of them regarding John thoughtfully. With their height differences it should look comical, but there’s something open and naked on John’s face that makes him seem far more vulnerable than his stature would suggest. He shares a look with Jocelyn, can see the wheels turning in that beautiful brain of hers. They both have a good grasp on each other, and an excellent grasp on John – he doesn’t think much actual conferring will be needed here. Which, happily, leaves them with more time to actually  _do_.

Right now John needs them to claim him, Harold thinks. He needs some sort of proof that this isn’t a flight of fancy, that this will be a permanent arrangement. That they want him, love him. From the way Jocelyn has been focussing her attentions around John’s throat, he has a feeling she’s come to the same conclusions.

“John,” Harold says, letting a note of command into his voice, “would you kneel for us, please?”

The pleased smile he gets from Jocelyn and John’s shocked intake of breath tells him he was right, as does the speed at which John sinks down.

“Shit, Harold,” Jocelyn whispers reverently. “He’s gorgeous.”

John shivers, lips half parted, staring up at them with greedy, desperate eyes. His hair is mussed, his shirt half-undone – he is a study in desire and Harold  _wants_.

 “Okay,” Jocelyn says, stepping forward to curl a hand into John’s hair, petting firmly, “here’s what’s gonna happen, John. When I go lie down, you’re gonna crawl over and eat me out, and Harold’s gonna watch you, maybe give some suggestions.” She winks at him, and Harold smiles at her, delighting in watching her hand on the reins. She truly is marvellous. “Then, you’re gonna suck him off. You do everything we tell you, maybe we’ll let you come, maybe even help you out a little. Till we can have a proper talk about safewords, we’re using the traffic light system. You know it?” She smiles gently at him when he nods. “And John? If you need to, we expect you to  _use it_.” 

At that, her hand tightens in his hair, pulling until Harold can see his eyes water. He nods sharply, and Jocelyn smiles, pleased.

“Good boy,” she tells him, and runs a final hand over his hair before turning and walking to the bed, already shedding her shirt. Harold moves closer to curl his hand around the back of John’s neck again, smiling slightly at the way he leans into it.

“Get undressed,” he tells John, “then do as she says.” Then he pulls away and moves to the armchair, sinking into it and arranging himself so he has the best view. He shares another smile with Jocelyn, watching as she slides her bra off and unzips her pants, cupping herself teasingly through her underwear. They’ve done this before, indulged his voyeurism and her exhibitionism by Harold watching as she gets herself off. He imagines this will be even more pleasurable.

Settling himself, he watches as John divests himself of the last of his clothing and crawls over. Later, perhaps, he will allow himself to explore the new miles of tanned skin and scarring exposed to them – for now, watching Jocelyn explore them will more than suffice. As the two people he loves most dearly arrange themselves, Jocelyn making sure he has a good view of the proceedings, he allows the heady rush of mingled love and desire to sweep through him unhindered.

Harold is still not entirely sure that he deserves happiness, but Jocelyn seems determined not to give him a choice in the matter, and at this point, he’s willing to concede. If happiness includes things such as this, perhaps he can put aside more maudlin thoughts for the night.

On the bed, Jocelyn tilts her head back, cupping her breasts in her hands, and tells John, “Good boy, that’s it. Such a good boy for us, John.”

 ~~~

Things that will need to be attended to in the morning

  1. A collar for John. Discreet, good quality, with he and Jocelyn’s names on it. Harold hasn’t used any of his old contacts in a long while, but he’s sure he can scrounge up something.
  2. A way to explain their new relationship to Taylor. Harold knows Jocelyn will want this to be permanent, and therefore will want to inform her son. Judging by Taylor’s careful questions about whether a three-way relationship could ever work without everyone’s hearts getting broken, Harold doesn’t think this will be much of a problem.
  3. Miss Shaw will need some sort of assurance that they don’t intend to hurt John. Sociopath or not, she has formed a kind of attachment to John, and can sometimes be deeply protective of him. Harold imagines –



“Harold, it’s late. Bedtime for fugitive vigilantes.”

John is lying back, careful not to wake Jocelyn where she has curled her spine into his side. His face is open, peaceful, and Harold abruptly aches with love for him, for both of them. So he nods, once, and slides down to lie flat, letting John curl into him and rest his head on Harold’s shoulder, lips pressing onto his bare skin. Jocelyn makes a grumpy noise and turns over so she’s curled around John’s back, then relaxes back into stillness.

Surrounded by the soft breathing of his loved ones, Harold relaxes his muscles and lets himself be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this fic on the 23rd July 2016, BST. On that day in 2015 I read a comment on one of my works from a writer whose work on here I'd read and loved, thanking me and doing finger guns in my direction. I did finger guns back, and the comments section turned into a slew of recommendations, which turned into a lovely conversation, which turned into us exchanging skype usernames. By the end of the summer holidays, I was convinced this was one of the best people I had ever met. I remain convinced.
> 
> I am talking, of course, about catsaremyboyfriend. 
> 
> After a year of knowing each other, I honestly don't know how I survived without her. She's inspired and contributed to basically all of my writing (don't think I've forgiven you for the Vampire Hell), educated me on the finer points of US cuisine and culture, given me countless virtual shoulders to cry on and rays of hope through some of my worst days, and teased me endlessly about my attraction to hot, dangerous older women (not like she has any room to talk). She is smart, ridiculously creative, insanely and unflinchingly kind, cute as a very cute thing and a massive fucking nerd. So nerdy, oh my god. We have capslocked countless headcanons at each other, ranted about the shitty treatment of women in fiction, cried about the various Hell Politics of our countries, and once spent about an hour reading a truly horrific Harry Potter/Khal Drogo fic together. I've loved every minute of it. 
> 
> Hopefully soon, the Atlantic Ocean will no longer cruelly separate us, and I will be able to give her the best hug that has ever been in the history of humankind. If anyone deserves such a hug, it is this incredible, incredible woman.
> 
> Dee, I love you like Shaw loves Bear, like Bruce loves justice, and like Boris Johnson apparently loves fucking up my country. Hope you liked the fic, bro. I couldn't have done it, or anything else really, without you.


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